Do you have excess jiggle in your midsection? You are not alone, which is both excellent and bad: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are 93.3 million adult Americans who are obese. You can take real action once you’ve verified whether you have loose skin vs. fat.

Can You Pinch an Inch?

You have all the information necessary to distinguish between loose skin and stubborn fat around your midsection. Take the tiniest possible pinch of skin from your wrist’s outside or, with caution, the back of your hand. When you push them together, there isn’t much flesh between those pinching fingers. Pinching loose skin elsewhere on your body has the same effect. Simply said, it’s simpler to access on your hand or wrist.

Now try to “pinch an inch” away from your belly. Don’t worry if you receive more than an inch; practically everyone gets a roll when they sit down, including supermodels and sportsmen. Your fingers won’t likely be as closely spaced as when you pinch the skin off the back of your hand or wrist.

The subcutaneous fat layer beneath your skin is what you’ve been pinching up as additional “padding.” While you need a certain amount of fat to be healthy, having too much of it—also known as being overweight or obese—represents a severe health concern. This represents stored energy.

Internal Visceral Fat Could Exist

You could still have abdominal fat even if you didn’t feel much of a roll when you compressed your belly. The concept of the fat that lies just beneath the skin and is present throughout your body, including your abdomen, is one that you are already familiar with. Visceral fat, on the other hand, is a different kind of abdominal fat that lies deep within the abdominal cavity and lines the area between your internal organs. Again, having some of this fat serves a vital purpose because it cushions your organs.

However, having too much visceral fat is linked to much greater health hazards than having too much subcutaneous fat, according to Harvard Health Publishing. However, the exact process still needs to be determined. According to their theories, visceral fat’s proximity to the portal vein, which conducts blood from the intestines to the liver, and the immune system chemicals it produces may both contribute to the heightened risk.

This may or may not apply to you because high visceral fat levels are notably linked to the “apple” body shape, which is characterized by a larger waist than hips. But visceral fat is still something to be cautious of, particularly since its deep, interior position can produce a belly that is more protruded than the more common, just-under-the-skin adiposity caused by subcutaneous fat.

An easy and affordable approach to determine whether you have an elevated risk of health issues from extra abdominal fat is to measure your waist circumference. According to Rutgers, an increased risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes is indicated by a waist circumference of more than 35 inches for women and more than 40 inches for males. Wrap a flexible measuring tape around your center, slightly above your hipbones, to get your waist circumference. Take the measurement right after you exhale, making sure the tape is horizontal and not tilted.

Concerning Loose Skin

As you can already see from the pinch-an-inch test, it’s quite clear whether you have additional body fat around your stomach. Also, quite noticeable is loose skin vs. fat; it may sag or drape noticeably on its own as if you had been permanently pinching an inch even when your hand was not present. There may still be subcutaneous fat if you have a few folds or wrinkles of loose skin, but the loose skin will be obvious.

What is that excess flesh around your midsection doing there? Chances are good that a quick weight reduction, pregnancy, or any other significant alteration in body form brings it on. Even though you can do a few things to control or lessen loose skin vs. fat, in extreme circumstances, you may require loose skin surgery or, as it’s more accurately known, a body contouring treatment. See if this kind of surgery could benefit you by speaking with your doctor.

How to Measure Your Body Loose Skin vs. Fat

There are several additional methods for determining your body fat percentage if you’d prefer something a little more precise than the “pinch an inch” test. The only test that measures your stomach is explicitly the previously mentioned waist circumference measurement, but knowing your body fat percentage across your entire body is helpful for two reasons.

First, losing fat from one area of the body at a time is impossible since weight growth or loss affects every portion of your body differently depending on your genetic makeup, body type, and hormone levels. Second, while having too much subcutaneous body fat can also be harmful, having too much abdominal fat is linked to increased health risks. Your entire body counts, even if your stomach is the area that sticks out to you the most when you look in the mirror.

Fortunately, as the Obesity Action Coalition notes, decreasing even 5 to 10 percent of your body weight may significantly enhance your general health. You can use the following techniques to decide if you need to reduce weight and monitor your progress while you do so.

Body circumference measurements

Similar to the previously described waist circumference test, but with measures taken at many other exciting locations, such as your hips, chest, arms, thighs, and calves. Unless you’re an exceptionally diligent bodybuilder, your measurements will decrease as your body fat percentage falls. To monitor your advancement over time, keep a journal of your measurements.

Online BMI calculator

This choice could be more precise and frequently underperforms at the scale’s extremes. However, an online BMI calculator is a quick, no-frills approach to determining whether your body weight is healthy for your height.

​Bioelectrical impedance analysis

This technique measures your body’s resistance to a mild electrical current while it travels through it to determine your lean body mass ratio to adipose tissue (fat). Bioelectrical impedance analysis, or BIA, processes can be found in certain handheld medical equipment or on some bathroom scales.

Skinfold measurements

This technique involves measuring the thickness of skin folds at certain locations on your body with the assistance of another person and a specialized set of calipers. It is preferable to have a personal trainer or another fitness professional as their assistant since correct results require that the person taking the measurement have specialized training in this approach. Have the same trainer measure your skinfolds each time for the highest level of precision.

Conclusion

Medical treatments are something only some people appreciate. Still, if none of those above weight reduction strategies are working and you need to know how to reduce belly fat quickly, you could consider having body sculpting or liposuction done.

Devices that transmit sound, heat, or cold waves through the skin are used in body contouring and non-surgical fat removal to kill fat cells. There are several methods available, but each one is only for certain fat-bearing regions and may require several sessions.